Dominique Strauss-Kahn has been married three times and has four children, but
rumours about his private life have circulated for years.

1991: married Anne Sinclair, star political interviewer of Sept Sur Sept, a programme on top French TV channel TF1. She gave up her post when he became finance minister in 1997.

2007: After he became IMF managing director in 2007, Jean Quatremer, a journalist at Libération, wrote: "The only real problem for Strauss-Kahn, is his relation to women. Too forward, he often brushes with harassment. It is a problem known to the media but that nobody talks about (we are in France)." Frederic Lefebvre, an adviser to Nicolas Sarkozy, claimed shortly afterwards in a biography that Mr Strauss-Kahn "wouldn't last a week" if he entered a presidential election, due to the weight of damaging allegations that would emerge.

Mr Lefebvre claimed to have seen photographs showing Mr Strauss-Kahn leaving La Chandelle, a popular Parisian wife-swapping club, and said they would be circulated if Mr Strauss-Kahn entered an election.

Tristane Banon, a writer, claims she had to fend Mr Strauss-Kahn off with kicks and punches when he invited her to a meeting in a room furnished with a double bed and a television. He said he went at her "like a chimpanzee on heat" during the alleged incident in 2002.

Her husband, a Socialist politician, said she spoke to Mr Strauss-Kahn about it and he said: "I don't know what came over me, I lost the plot."

2008: Mr Strauss-Kahn is forced to apologise publicly to IMF employees and his wife for the trouble caused by his affair with Mrs Piroska Nagy, a Hungarian subordinate in the international organisation.

The IMF board called it "a serious error of judgment," but ruled he had not abused his position. Mrs Piroska Nagy later declared: "I believe that man has a problem." Aurélie Filipetti, a Socialist MP, told Le Temps that she had once been the object of a "very heavy-handed flirt" by Mr Strauss-Kahn. "I made sure I was not alone with him in a closed room," she said.

Danielle Evenou, a French actress and wife of a former Socialist minister, said on French radio: "Who hasn't been cornered by Dominique Strauss-Kahn?"

2010: Release of The Secret of a Presidential Contender, written by a woman hidden under the pseudonym Cassandre, who was said to be one of his female aides. It cites "rumours of multiple extramarital liaisons beyond the one he confessed to with an IMF employee in 2008." In her book, the author writes: "Like all great political animals, he has trouble controlling himself." The French press quote President Nicolas Sarkozy as warning Mr Strauss-Kahn before his Washington appointment, saying: "You know, over there they don't joke about this sort of thing. Your life will be passed under a magnifying glass. Avoid taking the lift alone with interns. France cannot permit a scandal."

May 2011: Mr Strauss-Kahn is arrested and charged with sexual assault on a New York hotel maid.

July 2011: Mr Strauss-Kahn is released without bail after questions emerge about the maid's credibility.